Interactions are the center of any teaching style and if you are using any form of online or blended learning, the absolute first thing you think about when designing a coarse. In my case, I wanted to use 2 different options for this. Google Classroom has the option of being able use Google Meet for synchronous group or one on one live chat sessions. I used these regularly during Covid and except for a couple of students having issues with Wi-Fi, they worked pretty well. A link is emailed to anyone who is a student in the class for upcoming meetings. Google classroom is also suited for doing collaborative learning activities. Shared documents can be monitored in real time and I can add comments as they are doing them.
My second choice for asynchronous chats that can be monitored, is the use of WhatsApp. This is an app that I have used for years for staff purposes but while exploring what it is capable of doing, decided it to be an inexpensive, easy to use choice for students to communicate ideas about the class, do group work if needed, and get information about the class from me. It is easily monitored for assessment and for relevancy.
After reading our first article for this week, I realized that my choices covered all 6 strategies required to help create that community for online learning. When I read the second article by Andrea Harkins Parrish however, I did not feel that I am including parents properly, which for a History 20 class may not be essential. Google classroom does have the option to add guardians to be observers and keep students up to par with what is going on. This again may become more of an issue with EAL students having parents with communication barriers. That is a whole other ball game then.
Online Educational Tool Set 